Interview Segment

Yusuf Omar interviewed by Bob Vassen
September 6, 2006 East Lansing, Michigan, United States.
"I had to reclassify in order to attend Roodeport High School." [2:23]

Yusuf Omar and Bob Vassen, who both grew up in an Indian township of Johannesburg, discuss the differences in being classified Indian or Coloured under apartheid laws.

Yusuf Omar was born in 1960 and grew up in Fordsburg, an Indian township of Johannesburg. He recalls the security police beating up his father in front of him when he was five years old. Ahmed Timol, his high school science teacher, had a big impact on Omar. In 1971, Timol was detained and thrown out the 10th floor window of the prison by the police; Omar helped to carry his casket in a large political funeral. Omar works for the Department of Foreign Affairs and currently is the South African Consul General in Chicago.

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